Giants back on form - Anderson

17th September 2013

Huddersfield Giants coach Paul Anderson believes his side are now ready for the Super League play-offs after admitting they were not "battle-hardened" for their opening match against Wigan Warriors.

The Giants finished top of the league for the first time for 81 years but five of their last six matches were all against teams who finished outside the top eight and Anderson says that left them "under-done" going into the Grand Final Series.

The result was a below-par performance and a 22-8 home defeat by the Warriors but they have a second chance to reach the semi-finals when they take on Hull FC at the John Smith's Stadium on Thursday night.

"We were under-done going into that game," Anderson told a news conference.

"If you look at the last month of football that we've had, the biggest game we had was probably Wigan away.

"No disrespect to the people that we played but, in terms of getting ready for play-off rugby, it probably wasn't the best we could have had."

The Giants were outplayed by Wigan after being level at 8-8 at the break but Anderson is confident of a big improvement against Hull.

"We'll be better for that game," he added. "It was a real good, intense game of rugby.

"If you look at all the games in the play-offs, I reckon that was the most intense.

"The consistency we've shown all year has given us another opportunity.

"We know we've to win three games to be champions, which was the position before the Wigan game."

Anderson has a full-strength squad to select from after forward Ukuma Ta'ai recovered from a badly-split lip sustained in the defeat at Bradford Bulls 10 days ago and has been named in the Giants' 19-man squad.

Hull have prop forward Andy Lynch back for his first match since being injured in the Challenge Cup final at Wembley last month but centre Ben Crooks is still sidelined with ankle trouble.